


Arthur Curry/Aquaman One Shots

by Xoxo_Sadie21



Category: Aquaman (2018), DCU
Genre: F/M, and this will be me proving so, i am a huge slut for him, i just watched the movie last night, so give me time to write more for him pls, this is merely for aquaman y'all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-22 17:29:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17666957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xoxo_Sadie21/pseuds/Xoxo_Sadie21





	1. ↯The Warmest Winter↯

It’s a routine. 

There isn’t a day where you are not outside, at the edge of the dock with all sense of a dire hope weighing down upon your shoulders and chest. Not a single day goes by and not a single day are you left with that same sense of hope. 

Days, weeks, months. You are left with only but a sliver of that egence, just enough to calm your fretful heart, to ease you back into reality. Because in truth, it’s what you need - not what you desire, but what you  _need_. 

It’s cold out tonight and you know that with every awaiting second, that you will be let down once again. Still you cannot help but feen for the empty spot beside you to be filled up, feen for the warmth of the presence you so desperately want to accommodate yourself with. You  _crave_ all that your disillusioned mind can give you, even now as you take your unwavering stance upon the edge of the dock. 

You wait. 

And you wait and wait - until finally it’s all become too much. 

This feeling of abandonment isn’t foreign, but it has yet to break you. You are strong willed - 

You heave a sigh and wrap your arms around your middle, overlooking the seas before you. With one last lingering glance, you force yourself to turn away and leave. 

You need warmth. 

Yet the only source you could have possibly gained it from is no where in sight. Once again. 

You don’t know why you wait, why you waste away your hopes and wishes of a love you are destined to let shatter you whole. Perhaps it’s because you yearn for it like no other, perhaps it’s because the love he can give you has been too powerful to settle upon your chest with just one touch or with shy, innocent glances beneath satin sheets and cotton pillows. 

Or perhaps he left too much of a mark on you for you to just forget him. 

Arthur Curry was unforgettable. 

And he was standing at the edge of the dock, watching as you walk away from him. An untamed and overwhelming surge of desperation to call out to you broke through him and that’s when you stopped. 

You turn around at the sound of the voice, your reaction is instant, like a dog curling at its master’s feet. An insurmountable measure of relief washes over you like the waves of the Seven Seas - refreshing and it’s like coming up for air after nearly drowning. 

There he stands. In all of his  _King of Atlantis_  glory. Royalty looks good on him, you take notice, feeling the beginning of your repressed affection spring free as your eyes reach his in milliseconds within turning around. “Arthur?” 

     “H-Hi.” And there he goes, stuttering as if he were that little fourteen year old boy again - the high-pitch of his voice never waned either, and suddenly he was wishing to hide under a rock. You grin at him and it takes everything in him not to lurch forward and anchor you into his arms in that very second, that hopeful minute. His heart thumps wildly, sporadically, uncontrolled in his chest and for once he wants to be able to calm it down, but he knows that with you, it never has the decency to do so. Nor the strength. 

He scoffs internally at the thought, ‘ _You’re a King, for crying out loud_.’ 

     “You came back,” despite the raw joy you speak with, his heart drops as your brows furl and your lips tug downwards harshly almost. “Why- why are you here - now of all times?” 

He is utterly stunned by your effusion, the bitter tristesse that breaks the negligence in your voice. So stunned, in fact, that he is unable to give you an answer. 

     “I didn’t think you’d ever come back to me…”

He can practically feel the pieces that were supposed to keep his heart together snap and fall apart, shattering into millions of more tinier pieces. Nothing hurts more than to see your despondency - especially if it’s all because of him.  

He takes a wobbly, unprepared step forward, almost falling flat on his face from both hesitance and from the slippery path he walks on. A trail of water follows his footprints, unseemingly cold despite the damn near hazardous weathers that surround him. 

You don’t cower away when he nears you, there’s too much of your body wanting you to stay put, to - regardless of how you feel - let him tether his fingers around your own nimble ones and curl you into him. What you would give for him to just whisk you away, to take you to another place other than the one you occupy now. 

There are so many thoughts bursting through your head, so many emotions corrupting your heart, preventing you from thinking straight. The only thing you can do is bare to him all that he has - even  _unintentionally_ \- placed upon your chest. 

     “I’m- I’m sorry. I should’ve-”

     “Called? Visited?” Each word is like a stab to his abdomen. The harsh reality of your words cut him deep and it shows and oddly enough you feel almost satisfied. “Taken me away from this God forsaken place?” Your voice breaks once more, tears flooding your eyes. 

     “ _Koʻu kai_ -”

     “Did you at least think of me?” You murmur, head hanging low. 

     “You know I did,” he pleads as a sense of panic washes over him. Stepping closer, he reaches for your hands and holds them gently in his own, treats you as if you are something too entirely fragile for him to even hold so precariously. “I thought about you everyday - do you want to know how much I missed you? Because not even a book full of reasons could help you understand.” 

He cups your chin and tilts your head up, leveling your eyes with his. His other hand reaches around to hold your waist, to steady you, to both ground himself and you. He breathes out and then presses his forehead to yours in a moment of vulnerability, “I’m so sorry I took so long,” he brushes the tears from your cheeks with a swipe of his thumb. “I got a little stuck on the way here.” 

     “Will you just stay with me? For tonight? Just for tonight - I don’t want you to leave so soon.” You whimper, standing on your tip toes and ghosting your lips over his own. He keens for you - a King now merely at your mercy with just one brush of your lips against his. In this moment, he will gladly kneel at your feet and worship the ground you walk on - even more so than he already does. He will do anything for you. 

He will  _stay_. 


	2. ‘Till the Concrete Angel Falls

You were doomed from the start - things just took longer than planned. 

Indignation sat heavy upon your shoulders, and for once, you couldn’t control the outrage it brought. You tore things off the walls, off the dresser, you tore your pillows apart. You screamed, the sound gut-wrenching - it was surfaced from the raw abandonment you felt deep inside. 

Something inside of you snapped. 

     “Then leave! Go - see if I care!” You stormed past his bulky frame, shoving his shoulder in the process. Before he could round in on you, you swiped angrily at your cheeks - like hell you would let him see the pain he brought to you. 

You could hear his pounding footsteps behind you, his presence near, his anger radiating off of him in waves stronger than the Seven Seas. “I thought you  _wanted_  me to go! That was the whole plan, (Name) - you  _can’t_  keep changing it up on me, sweetheart!”

A bitter laugh echoed the walls around you and you stormed into your room, door bouncing off the wall behind it creating a thunderous  _‘boom!’_  in the process. Without having much control over the flooding emotions that bubbled up within your chest and caused an ache so horrendous you had to inhale the air for extra strength, additional tears puddled in your eyes. They fell with an ungodly force, overwhelmed by your sorrow - your  _hurt_. 

You didn’t want to lose him to the sea, yet you knew he belonged there. He belonged with his family - you were merely his best friend, he never truly referred to you as his family. Which, you’d admit, it hurt - possibly more than any emotional pain you ever experienced, but you took your time with him. Arthur was a stubborn man, he always had been; from the moment you met when you were both seven, to the time you knew him now. And yeah, somewhere along the years, along the endless secret sharing, late night sneak outs and walks along the shore of the beach, you fell in love with him. 

In reality, it was your fault. You grew too attached to him - you trusted him enough to let him hold your heart despite unknowingly, of course. 

Arthur Curry was the man who turned you soft when you were the girl who lost her parents and then turned into this cold hearted bitch, a brat, someone who never trusted, never cared for anyone but themselves. You were that person - Arthur changed  _you_. 

And in return it made you fall even harder in love with him. 

He broke away that hardened exterior of yours and brought forth that little school girl who always swooned over him when he wasn’t paying attention. Which seemed to happen a lot. 

     “Too late in changing it up on you now, Arthur! You already made up your damn mind!” You huffed, pacing the length of your bedroom floor, trying to stop the overflowing of tears that cascaded messily down your cheeks. 

     “How do you know?” He was out of breath, exasperated. 

You turned around and glared daggers at him. Immediately, his face dropped at the sight of you, eyes growing softer, more tender. He never was one to make you cry, so every so often when he did see it happen, he felt the guilt almost instantaneously, the build up in his chest was that of your own emotions. He felt pain when you were enduring it, cried when you cried, smiled like a damn lunatic when you were happy. 

He used to joke about you being his soulmate. 

     “Oh, don’t give me that bullshit, Arthur! I know you made up your mind,” you pulled on your lower lip, a lame attempt at trying to suppress the quivering, “It’s written all over your face.” 

There was an invisible force wanting to tether him to you, but he stayed grounded to his spot. He didn’t have the courage to apprehend the distressed state you were in - not when he knew the impact of even trying to. You didn’t like pity, he knew that. 

     He let out a groan and rubbed at his face, “You  _clearly_  don’t want me to go,” you froze when he hesitated with his next words, fearing the inevitability of them. “Why?” 

_Shit_ , you scolded yourself for bearing so much emotion towards him, but then you also couldn’t help it. You knew his absence - and even the mere thought of it - would open all of those ill-stitched wounds that you kept sheltered for so long. 

You knew why you hid them, you knew why, and yet you weren’t even upset that the main reason as to why they were so vulnerable and exposed was because of your best friend. 

     “Because I don’t want you to-” you stopped yourself, eyes finding his in a fleeting moment of resiliency. You could see the confusion in his eyes, those eyes that had the power to vanquish your nefandous nightmares - the ones that plagued your mind since the day you lost your parents. 

He took an uncertain, wobbly step forward. “What? You don’t want me to what?” It was as if he was desperate to hear you speak the unspoken words you would rather sacrifice yourself than let them be heard by his ears. 

     “ _Arthur_ ,” you warned, watching closely as he took another unsubtle step forward, fingers inching to reach out to yours and interlace through them. “You don’t know what abandonment feels like-”

     “I think I do,” his voice lowered, face twisting into one of understanding. “Thought my mother was dead for years, remember?” 

A lone tear slid down your cheek and before it could reach the bottom of your chin, Arthur was there to brush it away with the pad of his thumb. It was like second nature to lean into his touch, to feel the warmth that exuded from his skin. 

In response to your tenuous peril, he felt his heart waver in his chest. Your eyes were closed, unable to witness the messy infatuation he held for you. He thought it wouldn’t be able to get past you, but you continued to surprise him without the full intention of realizing you were doing so. 

     “I can’t lose you to them,” your voice broke, and you opened your eyes. Sniffling, you interlaced your nimble fingers through his own and brought his hand - and his warmth - away from your cheek. It was definitely a weakness of yours, one of many. “To the sea. Out there - those people are your  _family_ , it would be selfish of me to want to keep you to myself.” 

He was paralyzed with shock by your words, hurt even, but the emotion didn’t paint across his face as fast as he liked it to. 

     “And I hate myself for wanting to be that selfish with you. It makes me sick to my bones, the way I visualize it all, the way I see things and  _crave things_ ,” at that your face hardened, lips curled back. “ _God_ , I crave a lot of things that I can’t have. I shouldn’t - it’s just another fucking  _weakness_  of mine.” 

     “You…” He gulped, “You’re allowed to be selfish.” 

You chuckled humorlessly and shook your head, “But to what extent?” His mouth parted, but before he could get another word in your voice overpowered his thoughts. “What if I craved  _you_ , Arthur?” 

Should it have come to a shock to him? Hearing you say those words sure shocked him - although that was an understatement. He felt every single cell in his body go haywire, every fiber of his being alight with electricity. 

     “Then I’d be another one of your weaknesses.” He took a guess, feeling an urge to lean his forehead against yours. 

He didn’t move.

     “Yet you always have been,” you answered lowly, eyes darting from one side of his face to the other - one eye to the other. “You’re possibly my only weakness.” 

He knew what you were saying, it was purely obvious. He wasn’t oblivious to your words, he always listened to you when you spoke to him, hung onto every syllable, watched the way your lips moved and parted. 

     “You know what I’m saying,” you whispered, enunciating your words. He nodded, somewhat in a daze, eyes glazed over with awe. The ghost of smile danced across his lips and your brows furled. “And you aren’t saying anything - I feel like I overstepped boundaries here. I shouldn’t have said-” 

He pulled you into him with fervor, capturing your lips with his in a searing kiss. 

Everything seemed to slow down for you and your mind went hazy, thoughts scrambled, incomprehensible. He didn’t move his lips for a good minute, unsure on whether if it was the best idea in taking control the way he did. But as soon as you gathered your surroundings and realized what was happening, snapping yourself out of the momentary hypnotic daze, you began to move your lips slowly against his. 

It was desperate and you kissed him as if it were the last time you were able to. You stood on your tiptoes and wrapped your arms around his neck to bring him closer to you, a way to curl yourself into him without suffocating him. 

But he wanted you to suffocate him. In fact, he craved it. 

     “You won’t lose me,” he murmured against your lips, in between your little needy kisses to the side of his mouth, on his lips, cheeks, chin. You could  _drown_  yourself in him and would still come back gasping for air - feening for his closeness. 

     “So, you’ll come back for me then?” You whispered, pulling back to stare at him with wide eyes, a sliver of faith underlying in them. 

     “I’ll come back.” 

You kissed him again. 

     “I’ll always come back.” 

 


	3. Perfect Epitome of A Mess

The first time Arthur saw you, you were a vision, a sight for sore eyes. It was rather uncanny how cliche it all was; watching as you pushed your glasses up to the bride of your nose, shoving your face a little too closely into the book that held your attention. You were the epitome of someone who worked too hard, and that much was obvious. 

He liked you already. In fact, Arthur liked you a little bit too much for someone who didn’t even know your name. 

Afterward, and a lot of asking around later, Arthur found out you were Clark’s trustee sidekick, the one who strayed away from the fight and worked along the sidelines. He wanted to know why you preferred to work along the sidelines - he wanted to know a lot more about you actually, he was just too stubborn to get over his innocent infatuation for you. 

It got to the point where the man was too afraid, too shy to even walk into the same room that you were in. All he knew was that you were a mess - you were a beautiful, hazy mess - and by  _God_ he loved beautiful, hazy messes, especially ones like  _you_. 

The first time he felt his infatuation change, develop into something deeper, was the day he finally got to know the sound of your voice, see the little specks of a vibrant colors in your eyes - they were a beautiful shade, he noticed with burning cheeks and a pounding heart. 

He hadn’t been watching where he was going, his eyes were focused on the ground, nowhere near the approaching steps ahead of him. He bumped into you and despite the clutter of books lying about the floor from the impact, he was so glad it happened. His heart was singing with glee, and the man almost had a heart attack at the sound of your voice, how the soft words fluttered off your lips. 

He stayed awe-struck for the first two minutes, just staring at you with glazed over eyes. You noticed the absence of his conscious with one single glance. 

Not much time went by before you were knelt on the ground, trying to pile the clutter of papers and books alike into a small pile. “I’m so sorry,” you hurried to say, taking the clutter into your arms - or what you could carry. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

He snapped himself out of the momentary daze and immediately bent down to help you, cheeks flamed with embarrassment, although helping you nonetheless. “Neither was I -” he glanced over at you, heart taking off like a rocket. “(Name), right?” 

     “That would be me,” you chuckled lamely, now standing back up along with your new-found acquaintance; he clutched onto the books and papers, eyes unwavering and watching you with adoration. A rebel strand of your hair flopped over your forehead and you blew it away, giving the handsome stranger a knee-weakening, timid grin. “Sorry, again.” 

     “Don’t apologize,” he waved it off, a small grin of his own stretching across his lips driven purely from your own; it was  _contagious_. “Mainly my fault, anyways.” 

You raised a teasing eyebrow, and  _oh God_ he felt the thousands of butterflies that were begging to be free finally implode within his stomach. “I tend to be the awkward klutz around here, so how about we split the fault and make it fifty-fifty?” 

_Anything for you_ , he wanted to say. “I like the sound of that.” Was what came out of his mouth instead. 

A soothing silence filled the space between you, and his smile alone prevented you from looking away. Arthur Curry wasn’t someone you thought you’d get the chance to meet, considering your forever-consuming timetable. 

He was even more gorgeous up close, you realized with a quickening pulse. Everything about him was dazzling and ethereal, and the encapsulating color of his eyes were just at the tip of the iceberg. You could get lost in those eyes and never want to come back from the hypnotic daze they’d put you under. 

All those quiet nights that you were supposed to be focusing on your college work, you spent half of it ogling  _him_. You always told yourself that he’d be the reason why you were going to fail your classes. 

     “Are you two done gawking at each other or would you like me to wait until you were finished?”

At the sound of your best friend’s voice, you jumped back, cheeks almost instantly growing warm in realization that you’d been, in fact,  _gawking_ \- as Clark so subtly put it. 

You shoved your glasses up to the bridge of your nose, glancing at the source of interruption, “Clark.” 

     “( _Name_ ),” he drawled with a smirk, raising both eyebrows while glancing between both you and Arthur. He nodded at Arthur, and from your peripherals you could see just how flustered the Atlantis King was. 

You blew out an ungraceful puff of air and gave a whistle to try and elude the tension, although all it managed to do was provoke more attention from both men surrounding you. “I’m gonna go back to studying now,” ignoring the growing smirk on your best friend’s face, you turned to give Arthur a flamboyant bow, nonchalance radiating off you in the process. “It was good bumping into you, newly acquainted friend.” 

Before you could see how your words crafted a goofy grin on his face, you turned away and walked down the long corridors with a little bounce to your step. 

_~_

It was bittersweet how much stress the human brain could take. 

Panic bubbled up within your chest, a sure indicator of your stress becoming too much to handle, too much to take in all at once. Next came the harsh sting of tears in the corners of your eyes, and before they could even be unleashed onto your cheeks and down your chin, you felt your hands tremble, gripping onto your pencil, white-knuckled. It was enough to break it, yet you were merely too weak to even slightly bend it. 

The chest pain and the instinctive feeling of suffocation gave you the most discomfort. And despite the silence that echoed off the walls of the library, it was deafening, and it only made you panic more. You tried counting down from ten; it was a routine for you, take one breath then count down and then exhale. It was the most rudimentary thing in the world, yet you weren’t strong enough to perform such a simple task. 

A sob forced itself past your lips, the sound of it bouncing off the hollow walls of the library. You slapped your hand against your mouth as soon as it left your mouth and then screwed your eyes shut while bringing your legs up and under the longer sweatshirt you wore. 

_Panic, panic, panic_ , your mind chanted. 

And you listened. 

Your mind taunted you, shouted nasty unforgiving things at you. It vowed you wouldn’t pass your classes, told you weren’t smart enough, that you didn’t deserve to pass. A heavy sense of insecurity touched your lungs and squeezed them; you choked on your sobs, feeling the snot slip down your nostrils. 

You were a mess.  _Everything_ was a mess. 

_Suffocate, suffocate, suffocate._

You rocked back and forth in the chair, your knees slamming hard against the table, causing an ear-piercing squeak to shovel you in a reoccurring heap of loud noises, a pounding heart, an aching skull. 

It was all soothed the moment you felt an unfamiliar warmth encompass you, starting with your wrists as they were pulled away softly, unveiling your ill-maintained panic to the world. When a tender voice begged you to open your eyes, you obliged and squinted into the illuminating brightness that corrupted your blurry vision. 

     “A-Arthur?” Your voice was low and hoarse. 

The figure in front of you finally came back into focus and what you saw was almost relieving. He smiled at you in such a reassuring way that you began to feel your pulse alleviate back to its normal pace; slow and steady. “Hey, you,” he held your hands carefully in his own, they consumed yours whole. “Wanna take a deep breath for me?”

Your body relaxed only slightly, but you did as told, keeping your unwavering gaze on his as you began to take deep breaths. The constricting of your heart was enough to remind you that you’d never been in this proximity to him before - it was a nice feeling. Your mind was cleared enough to realize that he looked even more beautiful up close. 

     “Atta girl,” his lips quirked and your knees - although not on the floor - threatened to give out from beneath you. “Better?” 

Your eyes softened along with your entire face and you let out a shaky breath, “B-Better.” 

You sniffled, using your sleeve to wipe at your nose while he reached up to swipe at your cheeks with the pad of his thumb, proceeding to hold your hand for the added comfort he knew the gesture gave you. 

     “You gave us all quite the scare, you know?” His eyes danced across your face, worry lining the creases between his brows. He looked truly terrified as if he were coming down from the aftermath of it all. 

Your brows furled and you tilted your head, “Us?” You didn’t see anyone else in the room with you two, it had been just you and Arthur. 

     “Clark heard you scream,” he said, and you could hear something that frayed the edge of his tone, but it was too indecipherable, unrecognizable. He brought your interwoven hands up and pressed his lips to your knuckles, letting them linger with a fragility you’ve never known. “He was going to come check on you, but I told him I’d go instead -” he noticed the slight shift in your expression and continued to placate further on why. “I hope that’s okay! I figured you wouldn’t mind -”

     “And let you see the utter mess of a human I am?” Warm humor seeped through your words, at the tip of your tongue. 

     “I don’t mind the mess.” He was quick to reply, and he sounded so prominent, so courageous. 

Tranquility rained down upon you, infecting the open space between you, pulling you closer, closer, closer until you were only millimeters apart. “Are you sure?” He gave you a fervent nod, heart racing as the downturn of your lips suddenly flourished into a playful grin, reflecting in your eyes. “I must warn you-” you poked his cheek with a gentleness that caused his thought process to halt, unable to ignore the unyielding constellations in his eyes. “I can be a roller coaster sometimes.” 

     “I’m willing to risk that.” He mumbled, voice heavy with suppressed awe, face bare of all the effect your words had on him. 

You giggled, the corners of your eyes crinkling from the little elation you felt. “I’ll go easy on you, Romeo.” 

     “Please don’t.”

Until that day forward, you never once went easy on him. 

And he never minded. 

 


End file.
